One of the consequences of the loss of public trust as a result of the Government’s NHS policy is that alternative sources of public information to the ‘official statistics’ will become more and more important.

I remember a period of time, about 2003-5, when NHS maximum waiting times were dramatically improving. However the public lost belief in the picture that was being painted by the monthly DH statistics. They felt that despite the fact that the official statistics were making the case that waiting times were improving quickly, they couldn’t explain why individually they had to wait so very long for their operations. (The reason being that at the time the government was reducing maximum waiting times for operations from 2 years to 6 months – and could feel very pleased with itself. While this IS a big improvement it is difficult to weigh the experience of what feels like a very long wait, against the headline which says waiting times are improving if you have to wait 6 months for an operation.)